I don’t own an i-Pod, indeed I’ve always had a rather low opinion of Apple products as being a poor value for the money.

I don’t like closed systems that exercise too much control over things I buy. PCs have always seemed the better deal. I built built our current machines that value wise blow the socks off of anything you could find on the shelf by a major manufacturer.

I don’t buy i-Tunes. I’d rather have the CD, rip a copy to the hard drive and stick the original in one of our CD Changers. That way I can burn a car copy since sitting in a car in summer Texas sun can do evil thing to CDs.

If it turns out to really suck I can swap it at the used book store. I own it. If I want to give it away I can.

I’ve always thought the software licensing crap for individuals sucked too. There should be one License for businesses one for private users. If I have a desk and lap top I should have to buy the thing twice.

After all it isn’t like Bike Gates or Steve Jobs is going to be reduced to living under a bridge and squeegeeing car windows at the entrance to tunnels for spare change.

Which is why the following piece in Ziff Davis today pisses me off all the more. What pisses me off even more is how these lying pieces of shit at the studios claim “It’s for the artists.” when they fuck the artists over left and right

Someone better tell the folks who run the iTunes Store and its competitors. If you buy a digital music track or album from the iTunes store or one of its competitors, you don’t own it. Instead, you’re buying a license to play that track or album, and that license comes with an extremely limited set of rights.

Why does it matter? If you buy a CD in the United States, Section 109 of the Copyright Act gives you very specific rights under the first-sale doctrine. Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains those rights:

[O]nce you’ve acquired a lawfully-made CD or book or DVD, you can lend, sell, or give it away without having to get permission from the copyright owner. In simpler terms, “you bought it, you own it” (and because first sale also applies to gifts, “they gave it to you, you own it” is also true).

But the first-sale doctrine only applies to tangible goods, such as CDs. Digital music downloads (just like movies and TV shows and books) come with a completely different, much more limited set of rights. If you buy a digital album from an online service such as the iTunes store, Amazon MP3, or eMusic, you have no legal right to lend that album to a friend, as you could if you had purchased a CD. If you decide after a few listens that you hate the album, well, tough. You can’t resell it. You can’t even legally give it away.

We elected you President of the United States, not CEO of the Corporate States of America Inc.

I had buyer’s regret even before I pushed the screen for Obama, but I’m a better Democrat than many of those in my party who are in Washington. It was that Reaganphilia and the empty promises, the ill defined “Hope” and “Change we can believe in.” Now I’m hoping he won’t run again and we can change candidates for 2012.

An executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co with close ties to President Barack Obama’s inner circle has shot to the top of the list for next White House chief of staff, according to news reports.

Bloomberg reported Monday that William Daley, who serves on JPMorgan’s Executive Committee in charge of Corporate Responsibility and was US Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton administration, may be tapped to replace Rahm Emanuel for the high-powered job.

Sources confirmed the news to ABC News and Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, who added on her Politics Daily blog that Daley is “at the top of the list for chief of staff,” a position that entails so much influence it has been termed “co-president.”

But no decisions have yet been made regarding the the post, which is being held on an interim basis by longtime Obama confidant Pete Rouse, who may or may not stay.

The White House has declined to offer an official comment on the reports.

Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in; we are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom. We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of canalizing this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope. The final drop that made our hearts tremble with frustration and hopelessness happened 30th November, when Hamas’ officers came to Sharek Youth Forum, a leading youth organization (www.sharek.ps) with their guns, lies and aggressiveness, throwing everybody outside, incarcerating some and prohibiting Sharek from working. A few days later, demonstrators in front of Sharek were beaten and some incarcerated. We are really living a nightmare inside a nightmare. It is difficult to find words for the pressure we are under. We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. They did not get rid of Hamas, as they intended, but they sure scared us forever and distributed post traumatic stress syndrome to everybody, as there was nowhere to run.

We are youth with heavy hearts. We carry in ourselves a heaviness so immense that it makes it difficult to us to enjoy the sunset. How to enjoy it when dark clouds paint the horizon and bleak memories run past our eyes every time we close them? We smile in order to hide the pain. We laugh in order to forget the war. We hope in order not to commit suicide here and now. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the earth. During the last years Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behaviour and aspirations. We are a generation of young people used to face missiles, carrying what seems to be a impossible mission of living a normal and healthy life, and only barely tolerated by a massive organization that has spread in our society as a malicious cancer disease, causing mayhem and effectively killing all living cells, thoughts and dreams on its way as well as paralyzing people with its terror regime. Not to mention the prison we live in, a prison sustained by a so-called democratic country.

History is repeating itself in its most cruel way and nobody seems to care. We are scared. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We are afraid of living, because every single step we take has to be considered and well-thought, there are limitations everywhere, we cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want, sometimes we even cant think what we want because the occupation has occupied our brains and hearts so terrible that it hurts and it makes us want to shed endless tears of frustration and rage!

We do not want to hate, we do not want to feel all of this feelings, we do not want to be victims anymore. ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heart aching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullshit, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want!

We want three things. We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask? We are a peace movement consistent of young people in Gaza and supporters elsewhere that will not rest until the truth about Gaza is known by everybody in this whole world and in such a degree that no more silent consent or loud indifference will be accepted.

This is the Gazan youth’s manifesto for change!

We will start by destroying the occupation that surrounds ourselves, we will break free from this mental incarceration and regain our dignity and self respect. We will carry our heads high even though we will face resistance. We will work day and night in order to change these miserable conditions we are living under. We will build dreams where we meet walls.

We only hope that you – yes, you reading this statement right now! – can support us. In order to find out how, please write on our wall or contact us directly: freegazayouth@hotmail.com

We want to be free, we want to live, we want peace.

FREE GAZA YOUTH!

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WASHINGTON — The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In a newly published interview in the legal magazine California Lawyer, Scalia said that while the Constitution does not disallow the passage of legislation outlawing such discrimination, it doesn’t itself outlaw that behavior:

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don’t think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we’ve gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. … But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that’s fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don’t need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don’t like the death penalty anymore, that’s fine. You want a right to abortion? There’s nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn’t mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and pass a law. That’s what democracy is all about. It’s not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.

“The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices,” said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.

In other newly released cables, US diplomats around the world are found to have pushed GM crops as a strategic government and commercial imperative.

John Sinclair was the Founder of the White Panther Party in the late 1960s. It was a radical party founded in Detroit, comprised of white working class kids.

He was also the manager for the MC-5, famous for their song “Kick out the Jams”

He was arrested for the possession of a couple of joints and was sentenced to ten years. We all knew it wasn’t about the pot and any case the pigs bring it with them if they want to bust you. John was sent to prison for his revolutionary politics.

He looked around Detroit and asked the revolutionary question, “Why?”

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In a party filled with venial moral coward who dare not speak harshly about the Republi-Nazis and moster corporations that are destroying America Alan Grayson stands tall.

Too few Democrats seem to remember what it means to be a member of the party of FDR.

We have Barry, the wuss as President who admires not FDR but corporate pitchman Ronnie Reagan, who started this nation on the path to ruin.

When the republicans speak harsh words, Barry surrenders.

If he wants to run again let him run as a Republican because he sure isn’t much of a Democrat. Better yet perhaps if he were to announce he will not run again and act decisively in a manner befitting a real Democrat neo-lib Bill Clinton will be able to find him a position at Goldman Sacks. After all he has been working in their interests the lat two years.

Alan Grayson speaks the truth and is much more the person we need as President than Obama.

He Entered Congress Swinging, and Exits That Way

ORLANDO, Fla. — He has zero faith in the incoming speaker of the House, John A. Boehner, whom he calls a “tool of special interest.”

He derides the Tea Party’s successes as “bought and paid for by the enormously rich and the selfish.”

And he can barely contain distaste for his Republican successor, whose views he sums up as “bizarre fundamentalist.”

Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida’s Eighth Congressional District, is leaving office on Wednesday much as he entered it two years ago — as the pugnaciously partisan, verbal-bomb-tossing, liberal folk hero of the 111th Congress.

But in a wide-ranging interview as his term drew to a close, he repeatedly aimed his artillery in an unexpected direction: toward his own party.

Not for overreaching, in this age of hand-wringing over big government and creeping “socialism,” or for ideological purism. Instead, while surveying the wreckage of the November elections that cost him his seat and looking to the Congressional term ahead, Mr. Grayson posits that many Democrats have not been acting Democratic enough.